4.54 



. GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE. 



July 



that. Our laboring class prefer to spend their 

 money tor whisky. All honey here is made from 

 wild flowers, unless it is fruit-bloom, which lasts till 

 fall. I had quite a heavy yield on Ihe last of Octo- 

 ber, from what I call aster-plant. It grows pro- 

 fusely here in old clearing-s. We have no clover 

 •here on the bottoms; no basswood (linn); no buck- 

 wheat is sown. All comes from the woods or fields. 

 It is pure, .and sometimes as white as clover, and as 

 finely, flavored. I cut out some to-day as fine as 

 any white-clover honey I ever raised in Kentucky 

 before the war. Frank Gentry. 



Riverton, Miss., May 28, 188t. 



A SUGGESTION IN REGARD TO RAISING SEEDS OF 

 THE FIGWOKT AND SPIDER-PLANT. 



I will tell you what luck I had with those seeds I 

 sent for some time ago. I got a fine lot of Simpson- 

 plants. I thought it would be hard to raise, but I 

 sowed it on ground that had a brush-pile burned on 

 it, and it came up well. My spider is just coming 

 up; but my sweet clover has done no good; hardly 

 any of it came up. Pea-vine came up all right. 

 Bees seem to be doing well now here. 



R. C. Borland. 



Star Valley, Kan., May 19, 188-t. 



Friend B., a place where a brush-heap has 

 been burned is good for almost all kinds of 

 seeds ; and as the figwort is a sort of wild 

 plant, perhaps that is just about the kind of 

 soil it needs. 



NOTES FRgjI a SOUTH-EAST MISSOURI APIARY. 



I wintered my four colonies on summer stands. 

 They gathered the first pollen and honey March 23, 

 since which time there has been a profusion of 

 flowers, pollen and honey coming in all the time — 

 no gap whatever. They commenced breeding up in 

 Februai-y. Four large swarms have issued since 

 the 22d of May. Two swarms issued at the same 

 time, and clustered together. I drove them all in 

 one hive, then put on a second story. One queen 

 and swarm took the lower story, the other the up- 

 pei\ I went at dusk and placed the upper one on a 

 bottom-board; put on the cover, and they were all 

 right. So there is no trouble in dividing swarms 

 when they go together. In one hive, eight days aft- 

 er the first issued, the after-swarm came out; and 

 to get this swarm I climbed a ladder thirty feet, and 

 cut a limb from a walnut-tree, containing the 

 swarm, carried it down, and shook them oft' in front 

 of the hive, without a veil or gloves, smoker or wa- 

 ter, and never received a single sting. My bees are 

 what some writers call the vicious hybrids, so I 

 think that very good for a beginner. I saw the 

 queen; she i-an over all the bees, and into the hive 

 she went. I am possessed of a very good natural 

 art talent, and have drawn and painted a queen-bee 

 so natural that the humming-birds come and station 

 themselves on the wing in front of the hive, and 

 chat and hum at the painted bee. E. W. Geer. 



St. Mary's, Mo., June 4, 1884. 



CALLING THINGS BY THEIR RIGHT N.\MES. 



Nomenclature in bee matters and things, alluded 

 to in December Gleanings, page 794, reminds me 

 that the honey "e-vtractor" is misnamed. It is 

 conceded that a man has a right to call liimself by 

 any name he chooses, and may be the inventor of 

 our indispensable honey-machine had a right to 

 call it " extractor." Webster all along would have 

 us to understand that to extract is to "draw" out— 

 never to "throw "out; and the uninitiated are al- 



ways impressed with the idea that a honey-extractor 

 must be a very complicated and costly machine, to 

 be able to mick the honey out without breaking the 

 comb, but turn away with disappointment and dis- 

 gust, to find it only a slinging apparatus, as simple 

 as a churn. J. L. Caldwell. 



Mart, Texas, June 4, 1884. 



Friend C, there is just now being consid- 

 erable attention turned to this matter of the 

 names of things in bee culture. Friend Phin , 

 in his little book entitled "Dictionary of 

 Practical Apiculture," accepts the name 

 " extractor '- without remark or comment, 

 although he protests pretty vehemently 

 against many of the established names. Even 

 if there is a pretty good reason for changing 

 the name of tlic honey-extractor, I can not 

 think it will be ;ulvisabie to attempt it now, 

 for it has become pretty thorouglily estab- 

 lished by a good many years' use, and I 

 should say the same in regard to a good many 

 of the changes friend Phin recommends very 

 earnestly. Don't you think it allowable, 

 friend C, to say that extracting may be 

 done by centrifugal force V lloney-slinger is 

 not a very elegant name ; at least, it does 

 not seem so to me, although I know the ma- 

 chine is so named in many districts, and in 

 a few of the price lists. 



REPORT OF THE SEASON FROM TEX-4.S. 



The spring opened favorably for bees; com- 

 menced swarming March 26; April 20 we had a se- 

 vere cold spell, lasting several days, then we had so 

 much rain that young swarms fared badly when not 

 fed. A great many in the county died. I fed mine, 

 and lost none. I commenced this spring with 160; 

 had about 100 swarms, including first and second 

 swai-ms. Horsemint and linn are blooming now, 

 and bees are gathering very fast. 



TWO L.WING QUEENS IN THE SAME HIVE CONTIN- 

 UOUSLY. 



It is said, there ar« exceptions to all rules, and I 

 think I have one of those exceptions. I opened a 

 hive the first of April, to kill an old queen and put 

 in a cell. I found a fine young queen laying, and 

 the old queen on same frame. I have opened the 

 hive every few days since, and the old one is there 

 yet. I have frequently seen them both laying at 

 the same time, and invariably, with one exceptien, 

 on the same frame. We all know, that, pi-etty soon 

 after the young queen commences to lay, they kill 

 the old one, but I think this is certainly an excep- 

 tion to the rule. 



WALNUT FOR DIPPING-BO.A^RDS. 



I saw something in the last journal in regard to 

 dipping-boards being made of hard wood. I bought 

 a fdn. machine last year, and received no instruc- 

 tions how to use it; took ABC, and did the best I 

 could, but had a great deal of trouble about dip- 

 ping. This spring I thought I would try hard wood. 

 I had two made of black-walnut, "s thick, and they 

 work like a charm. I have had no sticking nor 

 cracking of sheets since. I can dip when the wax 

 is nearly boiling hot. I claim no patent on them. 

 Just try them, and see for yourselves if they are 

 not far superier to the soft-wood boards. 



J. W. ECKMAN. 



Richmond, Texas, June 3, 1884. 



Friend E., we have had quite a number of 

 reports, showing that two queens may work 

 together for some little time in the same 



